Guadalupe "Lupita" Benitez and her partner Joanne Clark decided, after 11 years together, to build a family. In August of 1999, Benitez began fertility treatments with the only clinic covered under her employer's medical plan, North Coast Women's Care Medical Group.

The battle began when the primary fertility doctor treating Ms. Benitez, Dr. Christine Brody, went on vacation after 11 months of treatments, leaving her in the care of colleague Douglas Fenton. While Dr. Brody expressed her disapproval of lesbians having children, she continued to treat Benitez. In the previous months, Benitez said, she told Dr. Brody that she wanted her sexual orientation kept confidential; her chart, however, said that she would require donor sperm, and had never had a male partner.

During that same period, Benitez was not only prescribed fertility drugs and guided on home care procedures, but laproscopic surgery was also performed to prepare her for artificial insemination. Dr. Fenton would later refuse to perform any further procedure or refill Benitez's prescription on the grounds that there was discomfort among the NCWC staff, including Dr. Brody, over Benitez's sexual orientation; Drs. Brody and Fenton were fundamentalist Christians and attended the same church.

"For nearly a year," Benitez said, "my doctors accepted my insurance company's payments and my co-payments and they strung me along with the promise that they would help me become pregnant.

"I was in my doctors' care for their medical assistance, not for their religious judgments."

Benitez would ultimately get help conceiving her son from a physician outside her medical plan's network, at a considerable extra cost, and with NCWC refusing to release all of her medical records.

Ms. Benitez, a resident of Oceanside, California, first filed a complaint with the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing on August 8, 2000. Backed by Lambda Legal, she would escalate the issue, filing a lawsuit (Benitez v. North Coast Women's Care Medical Group) on July 5, 2001. A resident of California, Benitez is protected by the Unruh Civil Rights Act, which mandates that a for-profit entity, such as a privately owned medical clinic, treat all its clients equally.

In the complaint, Benitez also alleged breach of contract, breach of implied contract, breach of the covenant of good faith and fair dealing, negligence, negligent infliction of emotional distress, intentional infliction of emotional distress, deceit and fraud, tortious interference with prospective advantage, and invasion of privacy.

NCWC countered that, since Benitez received their services while a member of her employer's medical plan, the federal Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA) exempted them from the Unruh Act. ERISA Section 514 supersedes state laws that relate to any employee benefit plan, but there are certain exceptions, including for criminal law. California's Fourth Appellate District Court, on March 4, 2003, ultimately ruled that the doctors were not exempt under ERISA, since the claim being made was against a medical provider over the administration of services, rather than directly related to the health insurer.

California courts would go on to uphold the ruling in October of 2004 and March of 2006, with the battle reaching the state's Supreme Court in September of 2006. Between February and April of 2007, 30 health care, policy, civil rights groups and California's Attorney General filed friend-of-the-court briefs supporting Lambda Legal and Guadalupe Benitez in the right to equal access to health care.

On May 28, 2008, the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in Benitez v. North Coast Women's Care Medical Group. Ms. Benitez is represented by Lambda Legal's lead attorney Jennifer C. Pizer and co-counsel Jon B. Eisenberg. Also on the case are Robert Welsh, Seph McNamara and Lee Fink of Los Angeles' O'Melveny & Myers LLP, and Albert Gross of nearby Solana Beach.

More information on this case is available at Lambda Legal.